


Light a Cigarette (To Complain About the Fumes)

by overratedantihero



Series: You Don't Own Me (I'm Not One of Your Many Toys) [5]
Category: Batman - All Media Types, Deathstroke the Terminator (Comics), Nightwing (Comics), Red Hood and the Outlaws (Comics)
Genre: Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Bad Decisions Club, Birth Control, M/M, Mating Bite, Mating Cycles/In Heat, Mild Love Triangle, Morning After, Omega Dick Grayson, Pining, Possessive Behavior, Tampering with Medication, predatory behavior
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-17
Updated: 2018-09-30
Packaged: 2019-07-13 11:01:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16016561
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/overratedantihero/pseuds/overratedantihero
Summary: Dick Grayson gets hit with a sudden heat, and Jason will be damned if he's left alone with Slade Wilson.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I switch perspectives like a mother fucker, please forgive me, this is all self indulgence anyway.

Slade shifted, the remnants of a dream seeping into wakefulness. He tried to sink back into sleep, but Dick was wriggling and tugging at the sheets by Slade’s side. Without opening his eye, Slade reached out and pulled Dick closer against himself with a hand splayed across his torso. Dick was still only for a breath before he began writhing about again, this time rolling over to bury his face against Slade’s neck. Slade grunted when he felt Dick’s warm, ever so lightly rough, tongue flicking against his skin.

“Settle down,” Slade rumbled. “Nightmare?”

“No,” Dick breathed. “Just feeling affectionate.” Dick’s sentiment was punctuated by his thick, floral scent. Thicker than usual, which usually bode well for Slade. Slade snorted and obligingly slid his thigh between Dick’s legs. While he anticipated a bit of slick, he took pause when Dick rocked against him.

“Are you swollen?” Slade asked, opening his eye. Dick scowled and pulled away.

“No,” Dick retorted. He pushed Slade’s arm aside and sat up. “I should be getting ready, though. Jason wants me to run interference while he slips into one of Ivy’s labs.” Dick stood and wandered about the room, pulling on briefs and tugging on a tank top without his usual showmanship.

“It’s early to be prodding Ivy for a fight,” Slade murmured, stretching out into the space Dick left in the bed. Dick glanced at Slade over his shoulder.

“I’m not going to fight her. We’re getting brunch. Harley’s coming too; Selina was supposed to, but she’s been MIA all week and Bruce implied she’s been sick.” Dick buttoned up his shirt and then pulled on the cleanest smelling pants of his he could find on Slade’s floor.

“Sounds like a heat,” Slade noted, eye closed again as he began to doze.

“Not likely. Selina’s on the same birth control as I am; she hasn’t had a heat in at least two years. Wayne R&D makes good drugs.”

Slade grunted. “Whatever you say, little bird.”

* * *

“Dude, you reek,” Jason griped, side-eying Dick as Dick pulled on a motorcycle helmet. Dick slid onto the BMW behind Jason, wrapping his arms around Jason’s waist completely unnecessarily; Jason had an inkling that Dick was trying, and failing, to subtly scent mark him.

Dick did reek. It was practically cloying. And beneath all of that, Jason picked up the infuriatingly recognizable scent of Deathstroke. Images of several weeks ago, when he’d caught Slade in Dick’s bed, flashed through Jason’s mind’s eye. Jason revved the motorcycle and peeled away before Dick could respond, if only to distract himself from his acidic fury licking up his spine.  

Jason dropped him off a few blocks from the restaurant and left as soon as Dick strapped the helmet to the rear seat.

“Jason, seriously?” Dick muttered through their comm link. “I’d say you left like a bat out of hell, but I’m sure you’ve already made that joke.”

“Just hurry up and meet the ladies, Dickhead,” Jason muttered. “I need to get to the lab, I don’t have time for small talk.”

Dick rolled his eyes but straightened his collar and plastered on his most charming smile. Which promptly slid from his face when he entered the restaurant and saw only Harley, pink under her foundation and holding out her empty mimosa glass in greeting to Dick.

“Hey, ya, baby-batsy!” She cooed. Dick grimaced. The restaurant was empty, Poison Ivy and Harley Quinn were far too conspicuous to meet in public without buying out a space, but she was nevertheless loud and alone. That didn’t bode well for Jason.

“Harley—” Dick began, but she cut him off, her grin widening.

“That’s Dr. Quinn to you! I’ve known you since you were wearing those little panties, someone oughta teach you to respect your elders, ya know.”

A waiter materialized and poured Harley another drink from a pitcher. The waiter raised his eyebrows at Dick, but Dick shook his head. Ivy was loose, and Dick’s was already feeling feverish without mixing in alcohol. Dick waited until the waiter disappeared to open his mouth, but Harley cut him off.

“That’s not very nice to Red, you know,” Harley lectured, before taking a long draw from her glass. Dick flushed. “Tryna break into her lab while she’s supposed to be away. I mean. I know what she did to you and Kitten wasn’t nice either, but she means well, ya know.”

“Are you getting this, Ja—I’m sorry, _what_?” Dick’s eyes went wide. Jason was shouting something in his ear, but it was white noise as Harley’s eyebrows shot up.

“Oh! You don’t know!” Harley squealed. “Pam-a-lamb found out that those pills that Wayne Enterprises has been cookin’ up in clinical trials has some ingredient or another that ain’t good for the environment. She switched it. Still good for birth controlin’, not so good for heat management. That’s where Kitten’s been. Thought you’d be down for the count too by now, but we went ahead and moved Pammy’s lab just in case.”

Jason was still shouting. There was a buzzing in Dick’s ears. Slade’s words from this morning, _sounds like a heat_ , played over and over and over and over and—

“Dick! Dick, do you fucking hear me? Go home! Stop fucking around with Harley!” Jason shouted, this time reaching Dick enough for Dick to blink and stumble back from the table. Harley had taken on a pitying sort of look.

“Heats aren’t so bad, ya know,” Harley offered. “Not when you’ve got a good alpha, like Red. I’d offer to share, but you know how she is about men. Sooner’d kill ‘em and use ‘em as fertilizer.” 

“Yeah,” Dick murmured, wetting his lips. Heat was already pooling low in his abdomen. It’d been a few years since his last heat, he’d forgotten the feeling, the warning signs. And Bruce—Bruce hadn’t called. Hadn’t warned him. Anger, want, heat, and anxiety tangled into a messy knot in the pit of Dick’s stomach.

When he finally mustered up his voice, he croaked, “Yeah, I’ve heard. Restaurant’s all yours for another two hours, Harley, I need to…. I need to go.”

Bruce didn’t tell him. Bruce didn’t reach out, didn’t take care of his omega. Dick was Bruce’s omega, and _Bruce didn’t tell him_.

Harley waved him away. “Go on, then. Go get you some… Tell your brother I said hi, okay? I know he doesn’t like me very much, but I’ve always felt a little like a mama figure to the lot of you, just cuz I’ve watched you grow up and all—”

“Harley,” Dick said, voice pitched. “Harley, you know this is wrong, right? This is wrong. What Ivy did—this isn’t okay.” _Not okay, not okay, not okay_.

Harley shrugged. “Pam doesn’t always get it. She’s struggles with sympathy, probably cuz she feels so disconnected from humanity and heats and hormones remind her she’s a mammal too, but she does mean well. Try to remember that okay?”

Dick nodded. And then he kept nodding, and then he stumbled back, up until he hit what felt like a wall. He inhaled.

Jason.

Jason slung Dick over his shoulder nearly effortlessly, and Dick sunk into the hold gratefully.

“Not cool, Harley,” Jason snapped. His tone was so gruff that Dick let out a defensive growl. Jason flinched. “Hey, hey, hey. None of that now. We’re going home, okay?” Dick shifted as Jason began striding out of the restaurant, but Dick began struggling anyway.

“No… no! Don’t—not the Manor. Don’t—” Dick began, voice growing wet.

Jason paused. Dick saw asphalt, they were already out in the parking lot. How were they already out in the parking lot? “What about your apartment?”

Dick fisted Jason’s shirt. “Yeah. Take me there.” 

* * *

 

Jason was going to kill Dick. As soon as Dick was lucid and well again, Jason was going to kill the ever living fucking out of him. He’d kill him and dunk him in a Lazarus Pit, just so he could kill him again.

And even then, Jason wouldn’t feel vindicated after seeing Slade’s smug smirk as Slade leaned against Dick’s apartment doorway, blocking Jason from entering with Dick in tow.

“Move,” Jason growled.

“Give him to me, Jason,” Slade murmured, voice smooth, level, low but gentle. Jason’s growl deepened.

“Don’t patronize me,” he spat. Slade raised an eyebrow. Because Slade didn’t appear to understand, Jason added, “I don’t need that tone.”

“No,” Slade conceded. “But _he_ does.”

Jason froze, finally registering Dick’s whining. Oh.

While Jason was still processing, Dick kicked free of his grip and slid down. He threw himself against Slade, yanking at Slade’s shirt and burying his face in Slade’s neck.

“Ivy—the birth control—she, she tampered with it, and Bruce didn’t tell me, he had to know, and he didn’t tell me,” Dick babbled, while Slade rubbed soothing circles into his back.

“Your—Do you need to get tested?” Slade asked. Jason blanched.

Dick shook his head.

Jason cleared his throat, suddenly feeling as if he was stumbling on something personal, something intimate. But that couldn’t be true, because he was standing in front of Deathstroke the Terminator and whatever this was, it wasn’t intimate. It couldn’t be, and that meant that Jason needed to stay, to watch over Dick while Dick couldn’t watch for himself. 

“Move, let him into his apartment,” Jason said, struggling to level his voice. For Dick.

Slade blinked. He didn’t move.

“Slade,” Dick murmured softly. And, at that cue, Slade moved aside, ushered Dick in, and allowed the door to nearly close on Jason. Except Jason caught it with a sharp glare. Slade glanced at him, but let it be, and Jason followed him and Dick into the apartment.

He followed even as Slade helped Dick strip from his brunch-wear, down to his briefs, and he watched as Slade tucked Dick into bed.

Jason had never seen Dick in heat. He’d never _smelled_ Dick in heat. Dick was feverish and flushed, with a furrowed brow and delicate whimpers that couldn’t possibly be coming from _Nightwing_. And he smelled sweet and distressed and delicate, and Jason made himself dizzy trying to reconcile the Dick Grayson he knew with this needy, writhing creature.

And, for just a moment, Jason saw Dick, bruised and wrapped in Slade’s arms. And then, against his best interest, he kept going. He imagined Dick with Slade.

It wasn’t difficult, both men’s scents had swelled and filled the tiny room almost as soon as they’d entered. He didn’t have to imagine what Dick looked like, mouth parted, olive skin reddened, clutching the sheets. Not anymore. And it was so easy to transpose this Dick with the one in his mind’s eye. To dress up the discomfort and strain of early heat as if imagining Dick in pleasure made the entire situation any better.

For just a moment, Jason imagined himself instead of Slade, slotted against Dick.

Jason didn’t even know he was growling until Slade shoved him against the nearest wall, pressing an arm to Jason’s trachea but not quite applying pressure. Jason cut off with a yelp, which melted into a snarl while Slade stared down at him.

“You’re upsetting the kid,” Slade said, slowly, evenly, as controlled as he’d been since they’d arrived. “If you cannot manage yourself, leave.”

Jason’s gaze flicked over to Dick. Dick was tangled in the comforter, tense and sweaty and baring his teeth at Jason as if Jason could ever be a threat to Dick.

Then, Jason remembered the last time he’d thrown Dick around, the bruises that painted Dick’s skin. 

He stopped snarling, and even glanced down, yielding to Slade. After a beat, Slade released him. By the time Jason lifted his gaze, Slade was crouched next to Dick, running long fingers through Dick’s hair and murmuring lowly. Once again, Jason felt like an intruder. Nevertheless, he crept closer, sat on the floor at the end of the bed and propped his chin on the mattress. Small and out of the way, at least for the time being.

“—fit. It isn’t your fault, little bird. Settle, it isn’t your fault,” Slade cooed. Dick was silent for a moment and then—

“Jason?”

Jason perked up. He hadn’t expected Dick to ask for him.

“Will you come up?”

Embarrassingly quickly, Jason scrambled up, kicked off his shoes, crawled onto the bed. He crawled up, towards Dick, and at Dicks behest he laid down, over the comforter. Dick turned around, away from Slade. Jason watched Slade’s comforting visage collapse in on itself, into a glare which he aimed at Jason as Dick buried his face in Jason’s neck.

“You smell like home,” Dick murmured. Dick’s skin was heated, but Jason knew his own face was red, and he hoped Dick didn’t notice the flush. “Do you mind staying? Just for a bit?”

“’Course not,” Jason said, watching Slade.

Day One

Dick slept most of the first day, curling up against Jason and, when Jason went to get him water or to text Tim, Slade. Jason found out that Slade was in Bludhaven, laying low due to a hit his ex-wife had out on his head. Jason did not sleep.

Day Two

Tim came by, to justify Bruce’s absence to Jason. It hit Selina suddenly, he’s been with her, he didn’t even realize it wasn’t an isolated incident that was how occupied he had been. As Tim talked, his eyes kept flicking over to Dick, where Dick was clawing at Slade and whispering hushed, desperate nothings.

“Can’t get rid of him without upsetting Dick,” Jason murmured. Slade’s gaze flicked to him briefly.

“Damian wants to visit,” Tim said, nonchalantly. “I wouldn’t bring him, he may come on his own.”

Jason frowned. “Don’t let him do that.”

Day Three

Damian came. Jason fended him off, convinced him to go back to Gotham, convinced him that Jason would call as soon as Dick was feeling himself. Earned himself a black eye in the process thereof. When Jason returned to Dick’s side, Dick worried over him, and then tried to press his lips against Jason’s. Jason shoved him off and left the room. Slade swooped in, murmured in Dick’s ear while Dick fretted over Jason’s rejection.

Jason yanked at his hair on Dick’s couch.

Day Four

Jason left.

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The consequences of Dick's heat affects everyone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just really needed to add a follow up to the last chapter. Some kind of closure to what happened (even if the closure is a bit open ended itself.) Enjoy!

“You left him there?” Bruce rumbled, looking down at his coffee as he sipped from his mug. He and Jason were at a café, a public location chosen by Bruce so that Jason wouldn’t make a scene, no doubt. Jason wouldn’t have shown up at all, but Tim pleaded with him and even if he hadn’t, guilt at leaving a compromised Dick with a predator gnawed at Jason. Not enough that he had the patience for Bruce’s bullshit, though.

Jason rolled his eyes and scoffed. He leaned forward and leveled a glare at Bruce until Bruce glanced up and met his eyes. “Not before you did.”

Bruce’s mouth fell into a hard line. Jason knew, after all these years, when one of his punches landed. Jason would have smirked, except that image of desperate, pleading Dick still burned in the back of his mind. Jason was right, but that didn’t make it feel any better.

Bruce cleared his throat and straightened his shoulders. “Where is he now? I need Lucius to look him over, run a few tests. Adjust his medication.”

Jason blinked. “How’s Selina?”

Bruce closed his eyes and took a deep breath. He opened his eyes frowned pointedly.

“Jason. You’re deflecting,” Bruce said slowly, softly. As if he had researched how one was supposed to speak to one’s children, and now he was attempting to emulate the concern and patience of the parent that he was not.

“Bruce. So did you,” Jason shot back, voice equally slow, with a taunting lilt.

The two stared at one another. Bruce closed his eyes again, but there was something authentic about the gesture this time. Maybe it was the way his entire face scrunched up in passing anger, or the way he cupped his temple.  

“Where’s your brother, Jason?” Bruce asked, without opening his eyes.

Jason scowled and crossed his arms. “I don’t know, Bruce. When I left, he was bedridden in the Bludhaven apartment. That was a few days ago.”

Bruce flicked his gaze to Jason and grunted. “I’ll send someone after him,” Bruce said, folding his hands around his coffee mug on the table.

Jason cocked his eyebrows. “Not me?” Jason didn’t know why, but he expected Bruce to send him, if he wasn’t going to himself. Jason didn’t know until that moment, but he’d been waiting for permission to return to Dick.

Bruce considered him for a moment. “No. Not you.”

* * *

 

Dick stretched, reveling in the ache between his legs. Behind him, Slade shifted.

“You awake, little bird?”

“Yeah,” Dick murmured, wiggling to face Slade. He winced as his core throbbed. “Couldn’t have fucked me harder?” The jab was light-hearted, Dick had been in heat, he hadn’t been _completely_ without his faculties. He remembered what he asked for.

Slade rolled his eyes, rested a hand on Dick’s ass from underneath the sheets. “You asked. I can’t say no to a pretty face.”

Dick narrowed his eyes. “You’ve said no to me so many times, don’t start now, old man.”

The hand on Dick’s ass tightened, and Dick flinched with an embarrassing squeak. “I preferred it when you called me daddy,” Slade cooed, while Dick flushed.

And then he blanched because, now that his heat-haze had subsided, he remembered that his actual father figure, his alpha, wasn’t there when Dick needed him. He hadn’t stopped Ivy from tampering with his medication, and he never even made an appearance when Dick fell into his first heat in years. Dick was unprepared and vulnerable, and Bruce didn’t bother even _calling_.  Slade's murmurings during the heat rang in Dick's head. _He's unfit, he's unfit, he's unfit_. 

Dick buried his face in Slade’s neck, and Slade hesitated before sliding his hand up to rest against Dick’s midback.

“I want Plan B,” Dick murmured into Slade’s skin. “I know Harley said that it shouldn’t affect pregnancy prevention, and I trust Ivy doesn’t want to encourage human reproduction, but she can’t know for sure.”

“Of course, kid,” Slade said, rubbing circles into Dick’s back. Dick pulled back, just enough so that he could look Slade in the eye.

“And then I want you to b—”

A knock on the front door interrupted Dick mid-sentence. Dick’s jaw clicked shut and Slade scowled, glancing towards the bedroom door. Dick wiggled out of Slade’s grasp, pulled on a pair of boxer briefs and a t-shirt, and left the bedroom to answer the door.

He needn’t have. The knock was just a courtesy, Helena, Barbara, and Dinah had let themselves in, and they were standing just inside his living room with mirrored frowns. Dick kicked his bedroom door closed and crossed his arms.

“Can I help you ladies?” he said, upbeat and with a wide grin, even though his arms remained crossed. He was suddenly, viscerally aware that he’d spent several days with Slade and hadn’t had an opportunity to shower.

Dinah’s nose flared, and she bared her teeth. Dick swallowed.

“Dick, are you okay?” Barbara asked, wheeling closer. “Bruce called, he said—”

“I’m great!” Dick said, voice pitched. “Swell, fine, a-okay. Thanks for checking in, but there’s no need to worry. Really, it sounds as if Selina had it worse than me, she had to put up with Bruce for a week.” He laughed, but there wasn’t any humor in it and the women just looked various shades of incredulous and concerned. Except for Dinah. Dinah looked furious.

“You smell like internationally wanted mercenary, Nightwing,” Dinah spat.

Dick’s smile grew strained. “Yeah? Guess I need a shower then. I’ll see you later?”

“He’s still here isn’t he,” Helena said. It wasn’t a question.

Dick opened his mouth. He closed it.

“Can I get you some water?” he said, finally. “You look like you’re thirsty. Let me get you some water for that obvious and extreme thirst that you’re displaying right now.”

Dick turned and strode towards the kitchen—or, at least he tried. Pain licked between his legs and before he could even wince, Babs announced, “That’s a limp!”

“It’s not!” Dick snapped back. Before he could procure an excuse worthy of Babs’s scowl, the door to his bedroom swung open and Slade leaned against the doorway in a pair of loose pajama pants. He casually shifted to avoid the crossbow bolt that _fwipped_ through the air to embed in the wood where his head was.

“There goes my security deposit,” Dick muttered.

“Your alpha’s rich, you’ll live,” Dinah snapped.

“Not my alpha,” Dick muttered. All three women whipped their heads to stare at him.

“I’m sorry?” Barbara hissed. “You didn’t—”

“No, Babs. I—we didn’t. Just.” Dick stopped, closed his eyes, and then muttered, “he wasn’t here. I needed him, and he wasn’t here.”

The room was silent. Dick blinked to find four sets of eyes staring.

“Dick, you could have called any one of us,” Barbara near whispered. “We would have been here. Any of us. Kate, Tim, Jason—”

Dick shook his head. “Jason left. And I appreciate it, Babs, I really do, but I can’t ask that of any of you anyway. I’m fine, I’ll continue to be fine, you should go. If Bruce needs to speak to me, he can come himself.”

“Dick—” Helena stepped forward, but Slade uncrossed his arms and strode over to place a protective hand on Dick’s shoulder.

“The kid asked you to go.”

Helena raised her crossbow. Dinah shook her head and reached for Helena, but Helena let the bolt fly anyway. It sunk into Slade’s shoulder, just above and to the left of his heart. He raised his eyebrows but otherwise didn’t acknowledge it.

“Helena!” Dick shouted.

“We’re leaving,” Helena barked back. “Just don’t do something you’ll regret, Grayson.”

Dinah put an arm around Helena’s shoulder and led her out, while Barbara wheeled away behind them. Barbara paused in the doorway, glanced back at Dick.

“We love you,” Barbara said. “All of us. We’re not always good at showing it, but its true. Take care of yourself, Dick.”

Dick nodded. “I love you too, Babs. I’ll see you around.”

She glanced at Slade and then left, letting the door slam shut behind her.

Slade ripped out the crossbow bolt, and blood gushed sluggishly from the wound. Dick leaned against him with a heavy sigh.

“You’ll get blood on you, kid,” Slade commented flippantly, studying the bolt as his skin stitched itself back together.

“She’s going to tell Bruce,” Dick murmured, standing on his tiptoes to bury his face in Slade’s neck. Dick was smearing Slade’s blood between them, but Slade didn’t push him away and so Dick didn’t move.

When Dick didn’t add anything, Slade said, “What are you going to do about it?”

Dick pulled away from him to look Slade in the eye. “I’m not going to do anything. You’re going to bite me.”

Slade raised his eyebrows. “Yeah? You prepared for those consequences?”

Dick tilted his head, baring his neck. “Are you?”

“You’ll be my omega, but you won’t be my Renegade?” Slade challenged, although he was already cupping the back of Dick’s head, guiding the angle of his neck so that he could brush his teeth across Dick’s pulse before drawing closer to his scent gland. To Dick’s credit, Dick didn’t so much as shiver.

“’S different. You don’t own me, Slade. You won’t own me, not even after this. Consider it a contract, and a protective order against Bruce.”

“Do you need to be protected from him?” Slade asked, wrapping an arm around Dick’s waist to hold him close. To hold him still.

“Yes,” Dick swallowed.

Slade traced the bob of Dick’s Adam’s apple with his tongue. “We’ll see,” Slade murmured, before sinking his teeth into Dick’s throat.   


End file.
